


Horsing Around

by econator



Series: Sweet Macaron [3]
Category: Formula 1 RPF, Formula E RPF, Motorsport RPF, Political RPF - France 21st c.
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drag Queens, Gen, Pierre has angst, wine bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/econator/pseuds/econator
Summary: The Crazy Horse definitely wasn't his usual style of watering hole. For starters, he didn't normally go to smoking bars with old drag queens lip syncing to show tunes. What did Jev and Carl see in this place anyway? It was all camp and kitchy.Jev convinced Pierre to meet him at his favourite bar in Paris.





	Horsing Around

**Author's Note:**

> Carl owns shares in the Crazy Horse Bar, which features waitresses in pink wigs. Jev's birthday party was at the Crazy Horse. He played piano (impressively well) in his birthday video. Everything else has no basis in reality.

Pierre ran his hand through his hair, feeling nervous as he looked around the bar. The Crazy Horse definitely wasn't his usual style of watering hole. For starters, he didn't normally go to smoking bars with old drag queens lip syncing to show tunes. What did Jev and Carl see in this place anyway? It was all camp and kitchy. He paused as he caught sight of the giant neon lips on the wall. Actually, how camp it was explained a lot about what Jev and Carl liked about the bar. One of the servers smiled at him, her pink wig slightly ruffled from a busy shift.

'Are you meeting someone, or would you like a seat at the bar?' she said.

'Uh, I was told to say I was with Princess Kitty.' Not that he knew who Princess Kitty was, or why Jev was so insistent that he should come watch her play.

The woman grinned. 'Kitty's set starts in five. Her party's seated over there.'

She pointed to a table close to the piano. Through the gloom, Pierre thought he saw Carl and a few of Jev's friends sitting in the group. He thanked her and wove his way across the room. As he approached the table, Carl stood up and gave Pierre a hero's welcome, enveloping him in the sort of hug that would be inappropriate from anyone else.

'So, who's this Princess Kitty we're supporting tonight?' Pierre asked. He slid into the chair next to Carl's, folding his hands on the table, simply because he hadn't met any of the others and didn't want to look like a tit.

Carl smiled. 'The best pianist on the bar's rota. Trained under a concert pianist.'

Trained under a concert pianist, but clearly not good enough to be a concert pianist in her own right. At least it was an actual performance, not a lip sync, though. 'If she's the best, why is she playing on a Monday night?'

He patted Pierre's forearm. 'Never question the rota.'

Pierre smiled at him, not sure how to respond. Carl put a glass down in front of him and gestured the bottles on the table.

'Some wine?'

Pierre helped himself to a generous portion of the chenin. He'd need it to get through tonight, if the uneasy feeling in his belly was any gauge. The bar's spotlight shifted to the piano as someone on the mic announced Princess Kitty. A tall, slim drag queen with a big, blonde '60s wig waved regally at the crowd, and sat down at the piano, revealing a sculpted leg in suspenders through the high slit in her dress. Pierre felt slightly bemused. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. Maybe they'd met at a sponsor party, when she was...less...well, when she was dressed more for a racing function than a Pride parade. Princess Kitty opened with a cover of “I Will Survive,” which prompted everyone in the bar to sing along. Everyone except Pierre, who wasn't entirely sure he'd survive the evening, let alone the rest of his season's racing contract. As Kitty finished, a second drag queen slipped into the chair the other side of Carl.

'Sorry I'm late,' she said to him. 'Streamlining three hundred years of rebels' democracy is a lot of work, you know?'

'We all have those days, darling,' Carl replied, pouring her a glass of wine.

Princess Kitty flashed a dazzling smile at the second drag queen before continuing with her set, which consisted mostly of songs Pierre was sure that, if he sang them at work, would get him thrown out of Red Bull for being Too Fucking Gay. Racing only allowed one Queen song, and it wasn't the one on Princess Kitty's playlist. He enjoyed himself though, relaxing in the dark with the easy anonymity and veritable river of wine. It felt good to indulge in whatever ridiculous prank Jev was playing on him, even if Pierre hoped the prank didn't involve having to sing anything himself. Princess Kitty announced that she was slowing the pace for her finale, and played the opening bars of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.”

'This song is very special to me,' she said into the mic, her fingers rhythmically stroking the keys. 'As I've grown as an artist, developing my love of music, this is the song that's kept me true to my creative vision.' Kitty smiled at their table. Pierre couldn't tell whether she was looking at Carl or the newly arrived drag queen. 'It's kept me on course as I've grown as a lover, too.'

She started singing. Pierre felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes. He'd known his share of lovers who'd broken the throne of what he thought was his ego, broken his hope for the future, and he didn't want to be reminded of them with his defences lowered by alcohol and the quirky frivolity of their surroundings. He sniffed, wiped his eyes, and drained his glass, ready to escape at the end of the song. Carl scooted his chair back and patted his lap in invitation. Pierre, despite himself, decided that Carl's lap was probably the best place to be in that moment. Kitty sang the verse about love being a cold and broken hallelujah instead of a victory march. Pierre turned his face into Carl's chest and wept. He grieved for loves won and lost, for the high hopes he'd nurtured for his F1 career before realising that he was owned, branded, and probably unlikely to move on into a successful team without moving series and reinventing himself like Jev and the others had. Carl held him close and rubbed his back. Awareness that the bar had broken into thunderous applause and cheers for the end of Princess Kitty's performance hovered at the edges of Pierre's consciousness, taunting him with their happiness. Their unabashed approval. Cheers he'd probably never receive in a career that was dangerously close to average, a second-choice seat filler driving for a team trying to break a losing streak. He clutched Carl's shirt and sobbed while Jev's manager held him and murmured soft comfort in his ear. The anonymous drag queen unwrapped one of Pierre's hands from Carl's chest, holding it gently.

'Would you like to talk about it?' she said, her deep voice also oddly familiar to Pierre.

He wiped his eyes and looked up at her. He wondered if he could trust a stranger with his feelings of inadequacy and fear that he'd never amount to much, never take a title, never be straight enough for his line of work. Her nose was far too big and inelegant for a cis woman, he decided. He was about to pull his hand back defensively when he realised where he knew her face from, losing the power of speech in the process. He stared open-mouthed at the man he'd voted into office more because the thought of the alternative had been too awful than any kind of progressive centrist loyalty. The cross-dressed president smiled.

'It's a good disguise, no?' she said, gesturing the wig and sequinned dress. He said? Pierre stalled on which pronoun and gender form he should use, even just in his own mind.

'A very good disguise,' Princess Kitty said, sitting in the president's lap and draping an arm around his shoulders before tenderly kissing him hello. 'I see you met Pierre, a young, French champion in the making.'

Pierre wanted to protest that Kitty knew nothing about him and therefore couldn't make such a confident statement, but held his tongue. He looked at Kitty's face, trying to work out who she was under all the makeup.

'A future champion moved to tears by a current champion's singing,' Emmanuel said as he wrapped his arm around Kitty's waist. 'That was a beautiful set, my love.'

Kitty laughed, making a sea bird noise that could only belong to one person. 'Thanks, Babe. I don't think he knew that I'm me before you told him, though.'

'Jev?' Pierre managed to squeeze out around his overwhelming incredulity.

Carl's arm tightened around Pierre. 'Welcome to the Crazy Horse Bar, where not everything is as it seems, and you can be your real self,' he said into Pierre's ear as he handed him a refreshed glass.

A small crowd of Kitty's fans assembled around her, wanting selfies with the Princess. Pierre sipped the wine and leaned against Carl's chest, feeling like nestling against his tall, muscular frame was the best protection from the mental overwhelm tugging his sanity away from him. Pierre wondered, if he had the chance to be a drag performer, whether he'd have the courage to pull it off. Maybe, just maybe, if Jev could move on from his F1 career with such fabulous aplomb, Pierre could too.

'Hallelujah for that,' Pierre said to Carl, and sipped his wine.

 


End file.
